


Baby, You Got The Keys

by Manickmondays



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Fake AH Crew, Female!Jack, GTA!AU, Gen, Like really minor, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 12:40:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5206229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manickmondays/pseuds/Manickmondays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>0-60 in 3.5.<br/>It's all Michael knows how to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby, You Got The Keys

**Author's Note:**

> When I say Canon- Typical Violence, I mean typical of a GTA game. That's the reason for the Mature.

_Shut up and drive._

Words Michael’s been hearing his whole life.

The first time is when he’s fourteen. It’s also his first introduction to the criminal world. His father’s illicit debts caught up with him in the worst way, leaving him dead in the driver’s seat and his mother passed out from shock beside him. He still doesn’t know whether it was his sister or his brain shrieking at him to _Just drive Michael drive_ , but what he does know is there were guys with guns rapidly approaching and it was do or die, and he wasn’t ready to die. He doesn’t like to think about having to crawl over his mother to kick his dad’s corpse out of the car before settling in front of the wheel and slamming on the gas, tearing away as the blood seeped into the back of his shirt.

The second time is when he’s sixteen. He’s followed in his father’s footsteps, slunk into the underbelly of Liberty City and left his mother and sister. Better for them, he thinks. His mother doesn’t need a son that’s more content with a butterfly knife than a job (fast food places don’t take kindly to kids with knives) and his sister didn’t need him as a role model. He worries about her from time to time, but he figures she’s probably alright.

He’s got a group he runs with occasionally, he doesn’t call them a gang because that makes him a criminal. Doesn’t mean his clothes aren’t stolen, every meal paid for with filched credit cards, but it’s the idea of it. He takes up smoking to keep his hands from shaking as he drives. They’re planning a heist, or the street rat version of it. It’s mostly just waving guns at cashiers and hoping the cops don’t show up, but it works most of the time. Michael’s most comfortable behind the wheel of a car, the weight a gun still a little too heavy in his young hands, and so ‘getaway driver’ he becomes. He’s listening to the leader when he points out a smarter way for them to approach the store and the leader snaps back _Shut up and drive, kid. You don’t get a cut to think, you get paid to drive._ He doesn’t open his mouth again after that.

The next time he hears it is a year later, across the country. The cops cracked down and broke up his gang and sent him fleeing. He’s able now to admit to himself that that’s what they were, a gang of kids with handguns and scuffed up knuckles. He scraped up enough money to work his way over to Los Santos and he’s worse off than when he started. His accent rubs people the wrong way, makes him seem aggressive. The new preoccupation with explosives probably didn’t help. The crews peg him as the outsider with the Alderney accent, not someone to let into your group. Miraculously though, someone finds his skills behind the wheel useful, or maybe they just see the value in someone who can drive like they don’t care about living. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t. He doesn’t even know anymore. The thrill of stealing has left his bones and it’s a deep set tiredness that comfortably settles its way in; he only steals to keep himself alive. The crew is better than his old Liberty City one though, they care enough to include his input on plans, especially parts that involve getting away. They aim a little higher too, actually pulling a bank heist on the Maze Bank.

He’s laid down out of the sight of the police, one hand on the keys and the other one on the recliner handle, ready to pop up and start the car just like he practiced a hundred times before. All he can hear is the sound of his breathing for a while, deafeningly loud until the muffled _pap pap pap_ of gunfire starts outside the car and his heart leaps into his throat. But he stays, just like he was told, silent, static until in a flash the doors are thrown open and there’s someone who looks awful dead slid into the back seat. He screeches, asking if they’re ok before the leader in the passenger seat is telling him _Just drive, Michael and they might be_ as she’s slipping off her mask.

It’s not the first time someone dies in a car he’s in, but it is the first time it’s his fault.

The next time it throws him off guard, because it’s in a way he’s never heard before. He’s older now, still driving, though he’s explored his interest in demolition. The job he’s working on planning with his new crew is, if he’s honest, bound to fail. But he knows to keep his mouth shut and nods at all the right times and only asks questions to clarify. That is, till the leader straightens up and asks with a friendly chuckle, _You got any ideas, new guy? We know you can do more than keep silent and drive. I can smell the c4 on you._ And Michael doesn’t know what to say. The woman in the Hawaiian print shirt is beaming up at him with the most sincere smile he’s ever seen and his tongue is glued in his mouth before the leader is waving in his face with his tattooed hands, asking if anyone’s home. He starts, still reeling from his input being asked for, but ends up pointing out a couple glaring flaws likely to get them all killed.

The heist goes perfectly.

As the years go by more people join the crew, their power grows. He comes to like the foreign pickpocket who nicks the leader’s watch and gets immediately added into the crew, and all but immediately latches onto the sniper with his awful, obnoxious pink sniper rifle.

And well, even the Vagabond comes to be a pretty good part of their little crew- family. He calls them a family, if only to himself. He finally feels at home.

Running away finally doesn’t feel dumb.

**Author's Note:**

> So... this has been bouncing around in my head for a while, and while listening to a GTA!Michael playlist I decided to let it out. Should I have been working on my other fics? Probably. Did I? No. Fear not, updates to Avenging Hand will come soon, I've just had a god awful couple of weeks and haven't had the time to write. You all understand.  
> Wanna come chat? Find me at [m4d-m4x](http://m4d-m4x.tumblr.com/)


End file.
